♀Katherine Symonds

Katherine Symonds (baptized 18 April 1630) was the daughter of John Symonds, a joiner of Salem, Massachusetts, and the wife of Jacob Towne of Topsfield. She was the eighth great-grandmother of Nancy Jane Blanchard (1929–2006), through her daughter Katherine Towne (1662–1714).

Life

An index of English christenings records “Katteren”, daughter of John and Ruth Symons, baptized at Great Yarmouth, Norfolk, on 18 April 1630; the parish register itself has not been seen.

Her father’s will, made in August 1671, names her as “my daughter, Kathren Town” and leaves her half of the rest of his estate, shared with her brother Samuel; a brother James and the children of a dead sister, Ruth Swinnerton, are named as well. Her mother is not certainly known: the christening index names Ruth, while the will names John Symonds’s wife in 1671 as Elizabeth, perhaps a later wife.

She married Jacob Towne at Topsfield on 26 June 1657. The couple had six children, born at Topsfield between 1658 and 1666, and their daughter Katherine, born in 1661/2, married Elisha Perkins. Three of her husband’s sisters, Rebecca Nurse, Mary Esty and Sarah Cloyce, were accused of witchcraft in 1692, and the first two were hanged. No record of Katherine’s own death has been found.